"Why is it," he asked, "that thou hast gone about to do me harm? What cause hast thou to hate me? If I was not over-thoughtful of thee in the old days, I was at least never cruel, and I took care that thou shouldst fare as well as might be. Thou wert set next to myself, and never did I let that one of those under my hand should so much as speak to thee lightly." Herr Frederich threw the reins down upon the neck of his steed, and with folded arms he sat confronting Albrecht. The supreme hour of his life had come. Now at last would he pour forth all the wrath that for long years had been festering in his soul. There was not more a need of prudence, of concealment, of a cloak with which to hide the intents of his heart. He labored only how to frame his speech so that it should sting and burn Albrecht to the very soul, like the lightning shafts, or the poisoned spear of the Wild Huntsman that leaves an incurable wound at its lightest touch. He glanced about with an instinctive, cowardly desire to see whither he could flee if the other's rage should overleap all bounds, and he muttered a spell to summon the sprites of the wood. "Ah, thou art, then, in league with the folk of the forest?" Albrecht said, hearing him. "Couldst thou not trust thine own powers for evil, that thou hast called upon them to help thee?" The cripple gave no heed to the interruption. He was lost in the fierceness of his feelings. He was determined that of the bitter joy of this moment he would lose nothing through craven fear. He cast all prudence to the wind. "It is true," he began, in a tone which was at first low, but which increased as he went on, and the fierceness of his anger burst out more and more, as a fire that is opened to the wind blazes higher and higher, "that you had me treated well at the hands of the wild crew at Neiderwasser, since, forsooth, I was too valuable a thing to be lightly handled. If your underlings were forced to treat me with respect, were they ever allowed to forget that I was an underling also; I, who had been born a man and a freeholder? Oh, the fool of a kobold, that thinks himself able to understand men because, forsooth, he hath stolen a soul through his wife! Why do I hate you? You who kept me in thralldom among creatures no better than the wild beasts save that they speak and go upright! You, whose father stole me from freedom, from home, from the wife that belonged to me only, and from the children that were helpless without me! Why do I hate you? God's wounds, I had much cause to love you!" His bitter laughter rang through the forest. Albrecht shuddered, but he drew nearer to the cripple, and Herr Frederich saw in his face an expression of compassion. The fierceness of Von Zimmern's rage was increased twofold that he could excite in the knight only pity and not the anger which he longed to provoke.